Day-After Pill Exposes FDA Rift

The highly regarded women’s health chief at the Food and Drug Administration resigned Wednesday in protest of her agency’s refusal to allow over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception.

Assistant Commissioner Susan Wood charged that FDA’s leader overruled his own scientists’ determination that the morning-after pill could safely be sold without a prescription, and stunned his employees last week by instead postponing indefinitely a decision on whether to let that happen.

Basically, FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford unilaterally decided to not allow Plan B to be sold without a prescription. Even though the pill has been proven safe, and is currently being used by millions of women world-wide. Plan B can be purchased over-the-counter in most nations in Europe, and I believe in Canada, too. There’s no scientific reason not to sell Plan B OTC.

Which means that this is purely a political move. And my question is, just what the hell business does the FDA have not approving drugs for political reasons? That’s not its charter! That’s not its purpose. The FDA is supposed to make decisions based on scientific evidence, not based on politics!

God, this administration pisses me off. This is not the country that I remember! Where’d America go?